A Convention In A Phone Booth Is No Way To Enlarge The City Gop

January 17, 1992|By DON NOEL; Courant Political Columnist

John B. O'Connell, Republican town chairman of Hartford, made history last fall. He presided over a campaign in which not one of his party's candidates was elected to the City Council. Three were nominated, but one withdrew. O'Connell didn't like the other two, so he didn't work for their election.

Nothing succeeds like failure. O'Connell set the stage for his re-election as town chairman at an open caucus of Republicans Tuesday night at which his supporters elected one another to the town committee.

Some 5,000 registered Republicans were eligible to help choose their leaders for the next two years. About 60 showed up.

Little wonder: The "open caucus" had been publicly announced only in a Courant legal advertisement.

That kind of public notice is read only by lawyers and would-be bidders on city contracts. O'Connell hadn't sent a news release to the daily or weekly newspapers, sent a mass mailing to registered Republicans, passed out handbills or done anything to encourage a crowd. Most of those attending -- O'Connell's supporters, with a few exceptions -- had received individual invitations.

The town committee elects the town chairman -- and also nominates candidates for the General Assembly. O'Connell, a former City Council member, would like one of those nominations, too, although he thinks it unlikely a Republican will win.

In several city districts represented on the town committee, fewer people showed up Tuesday night than there were committee seats to fill. A West End "caucus" of two people elected four committee members.

O'Connell was candid about the closed process. He hadn't wanted a lot of people to participate, he told me. He said he wants, as chairman, to protect the GOP's two patronage officeholders, Registrar Eugene Cimiano and his deputy, Joseph DeLorenzo, against perennially rumored re-election challenge.

Moreover, O'Connell wants to keep the GOP pure and conservative.

Former Republican Councilman Roger B. Ladd, who failed to win re-election in November, didn't deserve GOP support, O'Connell said. He was too willing to deal with the Democratic majority on the council.

The other Republican council candidate, Frederick Carlson, a community activist who is proudly conservative, complains that O'Connell didn't help him, either.

O'Connell apparently won't have a free ride to re-election as town chairman. His predecessor, Joseph Trigila, wants to open the process, invite more Republicans to join in, and run challenge slates for the town committee in a March 3 primary.

Trigila will apparently have Carlson and Ladd on his side, and some other Republicans as well.

The GOP has long been the minority party in Hartford, outnumbered 8 to 1 in voter registration.

It's No. 3 now. People for Change, created by maverick liberal Democrats, has won recognition as a separate party, and won all three council seats reserved by the city charter for a political minority.

Mayor Carrie Saxon Perry campaigned as hard for People for Change candidates as she did for her fellow Democrats. Nonetheless, People for Change council members play -- more effectively than many people expected -- the "loyal opposition" part formerly reserved for Republicans.

But that doesn't change the fact that the governing coalition in Hartford is liberal-Democratic. There is no conservative voice in policy deliberations. A Republican Party that tries to reach out to voters as a genuine alternative might have some success.

Calling an organizational meeting by way of a legal notice is hardly reaching out to voters.

O'Connell brushes the challengers aside as merely seeking "personal aggrandizement." A fight among Republicans, he says, is merely a fight for "the crumbs from the Democratic table."

Complaints about personal aggrandizement sound strange coming from someone who's just rigged the Republican caucus to retain control of the town committee, and who'd like to run for the General Assembly but doesn't see much prospect of winning.

The looming contest for control of the Republican Party in Hartford may indeed be a fight over crumbs. But a party so far out of power has to start somewhere.

Trigila's challenge may strike a sympathetic chord among registered Republicans.